Dual-Core Better Then Single?

[whitesti]

Hey guys wusup. Sorry for the noob questions im a new member and no I didnt search the forums! Anyways Im planning on buying a new Processor. I was looking at AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2.0GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core? $153 newegg.com
Or get the AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 2.4GHz Socket 939 Processor? $135 newegg.com
My budget is not set high I dont want to spend more than $150.
I use my PC for gaming only pretty much. I know that Dual-Core is great for doing like 3 different things at the sametime. Like Downloading a Movie, burning a music cd and playing a game. But I never do any of those things. Right now i have a AMD 2000+ 1.6GHz its 5 yrs old, so I want to upgrade I already have my MotherBoard just need the Processor. Let me know what you guys think. So basicaly my question is. Is it worth getting Dual-Core for gaming or just go with the Single-Core since I just use the PC for gaming? Thankx for the help

 

[SugarCoat]

if you ever play a game and use IE (i do this with MMOs) then get a dual core. If you ever plan to run a background music software while playing a game or any p2p software, go dual core. If all you do is one single task all the time, 24 hours a day 7 days a week 12 months of the year, then go single core.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

How many threads of execution are there running on your OS as you are typing this?

 

[loekf]

if you ever play a game and use IE (i do this with MMOs) then get a dual core. If you ever plan to run a background music software while playing a game or any p2p software, go dual core. If all you do is one single task all the time, 24 hours a day 7 days a week 12 months of the year, then go single core.

Not to forget video transcoding / encoding.

The speed increase is nice, it looks like e.g. Nero is using threads on both CPUs.

 

[Martin Eddy]

Even when you're not doing more than 1 thing at a time, the OS still is.

My system is so much more responsive since i went dual core.

 

[Skrying]

Go dual core.

It makes everything feel so much quicker than before, I seriously regret never building an SMP system years ago.

 

[whitesti]

I read that Single-Core is better for gaming and more other things. And Dual-Core is basicaly needs the 2nd core just to catch up basicaly like a car with Twin Turbos One is a small one that collects the air and then forces it out into the 2nd bigger turbo. I still think im gonna go with Single. Im sure I can still download and play music and play a game at the sametime.

 

[karlotta]

I read that Single-Core is better for gaming and more other things. And Dual-Core is basicaly needs the 2nd core just to catch up basicaly like a car with Twin Turbos One is a small one that collects the air and then forces it out into the 2nd bigger turbo. I still think im gonna go with Single. Im sure I can still download and play music and play a game at the sametime.

whatever you read , they are wrong. Dual core is what it is two cpu cores, 2 is better than 1. The diff would be the speed of the core/cores and or the odd hickup with some systems/apps that cant deal with the cpu clock. I play with the affinity all the time , setting one core to do certin apps ect , and i get better over all performance when mutitasking, better than just normal dualcore, and WAY better than my single core comps. Realy isnt anything better with the single cores...

 

[Tim Murray]

Repeat after me.

There is no reason to buy a single core processor at this point in time.

You haven't repeated it yet. Get on that.

Why? Because, let's see. The overwhelming majority (if not all outright) of new processors are dual-core. What does this mean? Software developers suddenly have a good reason to write multithreaded applications, so in future games you WILL see a huge speed increase by using a dual core chip compared to a single core. I'm sure there are parts of Vista that are improved for dual-core chips.

We could get into things about context switching and things like that, but we don't want to do that. A dual-core chip is far superior to a single core chip. Okay? Okay. I'm glad we had this talk. Now go finish your broccoli.

 

[Pete]

Like Baron said, tho you may not see big gains from an extra core with many current games, now that both Xbox 360 and PS3 have multiple cores and many PCs are going dual-core you're going to see game devs start taking advantage of that extra core.

Yeah, 20% seems like a big clock speed difference, but it's peanuts compared to a whole extra CPU at 2GHz, and that should become more and more evident in future games. As it is, even now you'll see big improvements in A/V manipulation (check any recent CPU review).

You'll be wishing you went dual-core when that anti-spyware or anti-virus app kicks in while you're gaming or, well, doing anything else that taxes the CPU. (You'll probably also wish you had a faster HD or RAID-1, too but that's for another thread....)

 

[digitalwanderer]

"There is no reason to buy a single core processor at this point in time."


/me eats my brocoli

 

[Geo]

I love dual core, even more than I loved Intel HT before that. It just means task switching, a rogue app, or whatever becomes practically unnoticeable. I find it difficult to believe that there is anyone who wouldn't get some benefit from dual-core. Maybe if you have a game pc that you fire it up and game on it, and that is the only thing you do with that PC. . .except even more and more games are becoming multi-threaded. Dual-core for teh win, in my book.

 

[Bobbler]

I'd go with a dual core too. At any given point Windows XP is tossing around 80++ threads alone, so it should be noticable even without doing heavy multitasking. Games might take a little bit of a hit initially compared to a single core (since you're still getting a decent upgrade from your Athlon XP or whatever you had), but it isn't something I'd be too worried about.

If you wanted to OC it, you should be able to get another 200mhz out of it with ease (possibly even 400-600 if you wanted, depending on the rest of the hardware), closing the gap some...

 

[Blazkowicz]

if you ever play a game and use IE (i do this with MMOs) then get a dual core. If you ever plan to run a background music software while playing a game or any p2p software, go dual core. If all you do is one single task all the time, 24 hours a day 7 days a week 12 months of the year, then go single core.

I've just watched my winamp CPU utilization, windows shows 0% with spikes at 1 or 2%, that's negligible (on my "old" XP2400+). maybe it's a bit bigger with a P2P program but then, it depends on what kind it is, and it's dealing with only a few kilobytes per second of data anyway. You sound like a newbie magazine which tells that a dual core allows you to surf the intarweb and listen to music at the same time. No, multitasking allows that, things like chat, download, music are negligible (unless you use really crappy programs maybe)

but, whitesti : if you go single core, do it for the best reason, getting it cheap. so, you should either look at the single 3000/3200/3500+ (and maybe spend the price difference in RAM or some other PC part you might need) , or the X2 3800+. (yay, baron, single core prices have been slashed as well, so if for a gaming PC the difference between single and dual core amounts to difference between 1 and 2GB, or 7600GT vs 7900GT, I say it's worth it to pick a single core)

 

[Himself]

Dual core because you are reading this forum and obviously a geek, so it's more fun to play with.

 

[SugarCoat]

I've just watched my winamp CPU utilization, windows shows 0% with spikes at 1 or 2%, that's negligible (on my "old" XP2400+). maybe it's a bit bigger with a P2P program but then, it depends on what kind it is, and it's dealing with only a few kilobytes per second of data anyway. You sound like a newbie magazine which tells that a dual core allows you to surf the intarweb and listen to music at the same time. No, multitasking allows that, things like chat, download, music are negligible (unless you use really crappy programs maybe)

but, whitesti : if you go single core, do it for the best reason, getting it cheap. so, you should either look at the single 3000/3200/3500+ (and maybe spend the price difference in RAM or some other PC part you might need) , or the X2 3800+. (yay, baron, single core prices have been slashed as well, so if for a gaming PC the difference between single and dual core amounts to difference between 1 and 2GB, or 7600GT vs 7900GT, I say it's worth it to pick a single core)

Actually i speak as a user who had a 939 single core proc and was horrified at the stuttering WMP caused by playing in the background of anything. Alt-tabbing between programs (one major resource hog one minor) is pretty crummy as well. To be blunt, i went from HT P4 to a 3500+ and was greated with an immiediate tanking of performance for doing something simple like going between a game and IE or trying to listen to a playlist and playing a performance heavy game. Careful what assumptions you jump to cause you came off a little snooty.

I was trying to be as simplistic in my wording as possible, if i sounded like a bad magazine add well then too bad, it seems he may of ignored pretty much everyones advice anyway. If you do multiple things, dont touch an AMD single core proc cause its a peice of garbage for multi-task, even light multi-task has a noticable performance loss, however small it may be. Its really that simple.

In this day and age where pretty much every new game has a CPU limitation its really stupid to not get a dual core and just give the game its own processor to play with. And if its an SMP game its that much better. Bonus is everything is snappy and you can do what ever with what ever else running at the same time.

I think promoting single core processors these days is about as fruitful as telling someone they should stay with AGP or a dead socket format when they ask what they should update their computer to for the next 3-4 years. There is absolutly nothing to lose but a few dollars from going dual core over single and there is literally quite a bit that can be gained over the next year or two, plus the obvious current gains.

 

[Blazkowicz]

and I was blunt and wanted to bring the other opinion that says single core are good for gaming . we still have single core at ~ half the price of dual core and I view things from the low end / cheap perspective. and I agree everyone should get a X2 3800+ rather than a single 4000+.

WMP has to be pretty bloated.. last time I heard MP3 skipping it was on a P133. I also don't play games so long and boring I have to browse the web (well, I understand how it can be with a MMORPG.. but I won't ever play a MMORPG).
It's the music playback part that made my go agressive on you . .

the irony : we're talking about a dead socket here (939, no much better than 754 if you ask me), possibly AGP (if the graphics card is carried over from the 2000+ rig..)

 

[Pete]

It may be an ideal scenario (MMO + physics), but check out the framerates at that AT link I posted. Single-core 2.93GHz: 22.2fps avg, 13.6fps min; dual-core 1.86GHz: 30.1fps avg, 16.8fps min. Again, probably close to ideal gains from a second core, but I expect gains like this to be more typical, moving forward. Check out what a second core does for Q4 (3000+ vs. 3800+). Granted, there's a minimal difference in the other titles, but that means you're not giving up much (IMO). For instance, Oblivion likes as much CPU and GPU as possible, but the difference b/w the 4000+ and the X2 3800+ is less than the 20% clock difference. It ranges from 0 to 12%, and this is because Oblivion takes advantage of the X2's second core (see 3200+ vs. X2 3800+ scores). I'd take a possible 12% hit (Oblivion) for potential 60-80% gains (CoV, Q4).

Also check this Xbit games vs. CPU article that includes a 4000+ and an X2 3800+: minimal difference except in in BF2 (where everything's scoring a ridiculous 300+fps, so who cares?).

Yeah, the 4000+'s extra clock speed and cache are tempting, but I'd go dual core in anticipation of future games taking more and more advantage of it.

Anyway, the GPU is still the primary bottleneck when gaming, so this question of which CPU probably isn't that important at your price point. I'd go for dual core simply b/c the whole "creamy smoothness" computing experience can't be denied. I've heard about P4 HTs being smoother than A64s, so it's gotta be nice to avoid system hitches completely with a true dual-core setup.

 

[Skrying]

Dual core is simply a must, if you say no then it just proves you've never used a dual core system. There are gains that no benchmark is going to tell you, Windows is finally smooth like butter, switching between apps that take a look power is so simple, you never even notice it.

I'd actually venture to say every part of my computing experience has increased since getting my Core 2 Duo. Moving through Windows is so quick, I can easily have several apps across my screens switching back and forth even with ones that are tradionally system hogs.

 

[whitesti]

Ok Ok Dual-core It Is!!! You Happy Now!?!